Xi Jinping launches unprecedented purge as record number of officials expelled in China - The Independent

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China’s president Xi Jinping has expelled a record number of senior officials from the Communist Party’s ranks as part of the largest purge in the country’s modern history.

A record 33 officials were expelled at the party's annual plenum, a four-day closed-door meeting of its Central Committee in Beijing that ended on Thursday, according to a communique released by state news agency Xinhua.

Sixteen of the 33 are from the military. They include Zhang Youxia, who was vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, the body that controls China's armed forces, and Ma Xingrui, a former Politburo member and party chief of the western region of Xinjiang.

Others named were Liu Zhenli, a former chief of the military's Joint Staff Department, Liu Jianchao, a former senior diplomat who headed the party's foreign affairs department, Jin Zhuanglong, a former industry minister, and Yi Huiman, a former chairman of the securities regulator. Zhong Shaojun, a former secretary to Xi who later headed the military commission's general office, was also expelled.

Only 279 of the Central Committee's 376 full and alternate members attended, 74.2 per cent of those originally named to their positions in 2022. That compares with 315 at the fourth plenum in October 2025 and 364 at the third in July 2024, and marks the first time in Mr Xi's 14 years in power that attendance has fallen below 300. More than a quarter of the original members were absent, many because of purges.

"More empty seats underscores the plenum's focus on Xi's vision of strict internal discipline," Neil Thomas, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, a US think-tank, said in a post on X.

The purges are widely viewed as solidifying Mr Xi’s absolute control over the Communist Party’s leadership and China’s expanding military. They have reduced the Central Military Commission from seven members to only two – Mr Xi himself and Zhang Shengmin, the military's anti-corruption chief.

The plenum elected Zhang Shengmin to the Politburo, the party's top decision-making body, which now has 22 members, making him the only military member. Ten alternate members were promoted to full membership of the Central Committee.

The communique said the party had confronted serious problems in its own ranks.

"The problem of lax and weak self-supervision and self-governance has been addressed at the root, unhealthy tendencies that had long gone unchecked have been curbed, deep-seated problems that had plagued the Party for years have been remedied, and serious dangers hidden within the Party, the state, and the military have been removed," it said.

The committee also adopted a decision on "full and rigorous party self-governance", which stresses stronger centralised leadership and stricter selection, management and supervision of officials.

More than two million people have been disciplined since Xi took power in 2012 for "pointless formalities, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance", Zhang Fuhai of the party's discipline commission told a press briefing on Friday, and 680,000 people have been disciplined in the first nine months of this year.

The expulsions were for what the communique called "serious violations of discipline and law", wording that has become routine and that does not say what the officials are accused of.

The plenum also set the 21st Party Congress for the second half of 2027, when Mr Xi is widely expected to secure a fourth term as party leader, which would make him the longest-serving ruler of Communist China since Mao Zedong.

The congress will refresh the ranks of the Central Committee and the Politburo, but many analysts believe the purges have been so wide-ranging that there are few suitable candidates for promotion.